The Disaster Zone: Nobody's Child
by LMSharp
Summary: Part One in The Disaster Zone series. Beth Shepard was fighting from the day she arrived at a charity clinic in the seamy East Side of the Vancouver megalopolis. Abandoned by her mother, named by the nurse on duty, Beth grew up in the system, neglected and starved for love, dreaming of the day she'd escape and find something better. An Earthborn Shepard prequel.
1. Foster Trash

I

Foster Trash

There was a boy across the street, and Beth wanted to play. But when she crossed the street and asked, he pushed her down, and she tore her jeans and scraped her knee in the gravel. It hurt, but she was too surprised and angry to think of crying. She punched him, and his nose bled. He did cry, and he ran inside, yelling "Mommy."

Sammy back home talked about her Mommy, sometimes. She said she'd see her again, someday. Sometimes, too, when Mr. Hollis wasn't drinking beer on the brown couch, Sammy had shown her channels on TV that played stories about mommies. Mommies were people that looked like you, people that belonged to you. Mrs. Hollis wasn't Beth's Mommy. Beth didn't think she had a Mommy. She couldn't remember one, anyway. Before Mrs. Hollis there'd been another lady, but Beth was sure she hadn't been Mommy, either.

Beth was just kneeling down to see the blood and dirt on her knee, curious, when the boy across the street came out again with a woman that looked like him. She yelled at Beth with the ugly words Mrs. Hollis sometimes yelled at Mr. Hollis when the beer made him smelly and he fell asleep on the brown couch and forgot to go to work.

"Can't the Hollises control their foster trash? You just stay away from Ethan, you hear? If I see you in front of our building again, I'll report them. You tell them: I'll report you as violent and neglected, and that will be the last they ever see of their state money. See how long they last after that. And you? It'll be another home for you, you little hellion."

The kid, tucked under his Mommy's arm, was smiling. Beth made a face at him and left the yard. She'd only wanted to play ball with him. His ball was red, Beth's favorite color. He didn't have to be a . . . a stupid horse? Isn't that what Mrs. Hollis called Mr. Hollis?

She'd never been called foster trash before. Beth didn't think she was trash.

* * *

 **RECORDING: MRS. HOLLIS TO THE SOCIAL WORKER, 2158**

A. HOLLIS: Beth? That girl has got to learn to control her goddamn temper. She's a shrimpy little smartass, is what she is, and the neighborhood kids won't stand for it. But when the little scrapper kicks their whiny asses, I'm the one that gets burned. Don't get me wrong. I like to see the little sons of bitches get theirs, like to see a kid stand up for herself, but I can't have trouble in the house.

* * *

 **A/N: So I realized _The Disaster Zone_ is actually really unwieldy all together, and I can't possibly describe all of it in a single synopsis. So I'm editing the piece, adding some content that was never there before, and rereleasing the piece as seven separate fics. Updates on Wednesdays and Saturdays for now, until I hit writer's block or life happens. If you've never seen this before, welcome! Tell me what you think. If you used to like this story and have just now found it again, welcome back! **

**Always,**

 **LMSharp**


	2. Blank File

II

Blank File

The rhinestones on the new social worker's green glasses had been glued on crooked, her nail polish was cracked, and she was wearing too much perfume. Her smile reminded Beth of pictures she'd seen of a horse. She looked Beth up and down and laughed a loud, nervous laugh. Then she looked back down at the datapad on her chipped, fake wood desk and her drawn-on eyebrows crinkled. "Beth Shepard?"

Beth didn't answer.

"What a pretty name," Ms. Brown tried again. "We're going to try to get you adopted. How would you like that? A nice family of your very own. But you're going to have to answer a few questions for me, Beth. Can you do that?"

Beth nodded.

"Your file's . . . well, it's rather thin, dearie. Born April 11, 2154?"

"That's my birthday."

"You're six?"

Beth didn't answer.

Ms. Brown cleared her throat and tapped her nails on her desk. "Your birth certificate says you were born at the East Sixteenth Charity Clinic, but there's . . . there's no record of a mother. Or a father. Do you know anything? Have any of the people you've lived with told you anything? The Hills or the Hollises? Mrs. Tyre?"

"They just want me for the money from the state. They don't know anything. Even if they did they wouldn't tell me, probably."

"Oh, I'm sure that's not true."

Beth stared at Ms. Brown's shiny glasses. Behind the glass, the watery, blue eyes were looking everywhere but at Beth.

"Have you ever had any communication? A letter or an e-mail? A message of any kind?"

"No."

Ms. Brown spread her hands over the desk. Tap, tap, tap, went the nails again. She chewed her purple lip. "I . . . I . . ."

"You're new at this, aren't you?" Beth asked. "Not just new here. They didn't tell you what to do with a kid like me."

"Yes, this is my first day on the job, but I assure you, I will take the best care of you I can, dearie. I'm sure we'll fill out your paperwork somehow and find you a family."

"Tommy at school says no one would want me anyway. He's probably right. Mrs. Hollis sent me away. And so is Mrs. Tyre, right? That's why I'm here. You're moving me again."

"It's not that they didn't want you, dearie," Ms. Brown said quickly. "Mrs. Hollis's license got revoked, and now that Mrs. Tyre will be having her own child, she's expressed concerns about her ability to care for the rest of you. It's got nothing to do with you, Beth. Don't worry a bit. We'll find you a new place to stay for now, and I am on your case! Before you know it, maybe just in a few months, you'll go someplace else, someplace permanent."

Beth was not filled with confidence. "Did you have more questions, Ms. Brown?" she asked.

Ms. Brown blinked behind her green glasses, and her purple lips opened in surprise. "Well, I . . . no. That's all for now, Beth. You can wait outside in the playroom. I'll come get you and your things when we're ready to take you to your new caretakers."

Beth slid off her plastic chair and slipped out into the playroom without a word. Later, when she was building holo-mazes for the holo-ships to fight through on the sim-interface (nicer than any she'd played on before, she'd be sad when she had to stop), playing Shanxi, she heard Ms. Brown talking on her comm.

"I don't know what to do, ma'am. I've never seen this many blanks in a file before. This case—not only are there no parents, there aren't even any of the other usual relatives. No aunt or uncle, no grandparent. No communications, no official records, neither the child nor her previous guardians have made any report of so much as an informal word-of-mouth message by proxy. I can't even trace the name to get parentage—it was given her by the nurse. Just invented off the top of her head. And you know what that means. No parents means no health history, no genetic mapping . . .

"No. I don't even have her ethnicity to make a ballpark guess at what might be going on inside. I can't get a DNA test without sufficient cause or a relative's signature, and there are no relatives," she continued. "The kid seems healthy enough. Nothing to worry about in the medical records. She broke her wrist last year. Fist fight. She has a history of violence, but all of them do down here in one way or another."

Beth had thought Ms. Brown was talking about her. Now she was sure. She'd broken her wrist last year. She listened more closely, making sure to keep the turians and the humans fighting on the sim-interface in case the secretary was watching.

"Why don't I have ethnicity? Ma'am, it could be anything. She looks like she might be part aboriginal. Dark, you know. But it could be Latin, or Black, or Greek. Except her eyes are gray and her hair is _yellow_ , I swear. Yeah. Witchy looking little thing. And skinny as a wraith. All elbows and knees. But she could be pretty, maybe. In the right clothes."

Ms. Brown listened a moment, then said, "The real problem is she's got her eyes open, and she's already been in the system too long, ma'am. She's . . . I mean, they told us the children develop trust issues in training, but I never thought . . . she's hard. Six years old, and hard. I promised her I'd find her a family. Well what could I say? But with her file, all those holes in her information? Especially the lack of genetic information . . . no idea what diseases she could develop, or what modifications she might have had. Probably none: the mother gave birth in a charity clinic, probably standard homeless junkie. But no boosters is just as bad as any illegal tailoring, ma'am. I don't know. I just don't know."


	3. Left Behind

III

Left Behind

The closet was dark and close and smelled weird. There was a skittering noise by Beth's left hand. Maybe a spider. Probably a roach. Beth hoped Ms. Ibañez let her out soon. Not that she wanted to see anyone ever again, but she was getting hungry. It was too late for dinner, but she could probably sneak a snack before bed. Beth scrubbed at her face as the shelves dug into her back, but she'd stopped crying a while back. Her backside had long since stopped hurting, she probably hadn't been in here for more than an hour, and she deserved all that anyway. What stung worse was no one would ever adopt her now. Ever. And Carrie-Ann was gone.

Ms. Brown had shown up for Carrie-Ann yesterday. Given Beth a little wave, like she was sorry, guilty, then taken Carrie-Ann away to her new home, her new family.

And she wasn't, she really wasn't that different from Beth. Carrie-Ann didn't have family or relatives, either. Well, none that would come for her, anyway. No dad, her grandparents were dead, her mom was an only child, and her mom was in jail and had signed her over to the state last year. But Ms. Brown had found a family for Carrie-Ann, and Beth was still here. Like the other kid at Ms. Ibañez's, Jimmy. Jimmy never washed. He cussed all the time for no reason, smoked in the backyard, and Beth and Carrie-Ann had seen him kick Ms. Ibañez's dog, Teddy. Jimmy was fourteen. He hadn't been adopted, either. Beth had thought yesterday that if she didn't do something, she'd end up like Jimmy. She snorted. She definitely would now.

She'd guessed when Ms. Brown had come for Carrie-Ann not her that Ms. Brown's boss hadn't been able to help her fill in the blanks in the file, the ones that would keep the families from adopting Beth. Beth knew she couldn't change that, but she'd thought that maybe she could do something about the rest of it.

Beth made a face at the darkness and tugged her hair. Even six washings hadn't changed what she'd done. That's why she was in here. Ms. Ibañez was mad she'd have to take her to a salon tomorrow. She said she couldn't afford it, and it was ridiculous taking a six-year-old, anyway. Beth had pointed out Ms. Ibañez could just cut it all off with scissors, but Ms. Ibañez at least wouldn't let her show up to school next week bald. She wasn't a monster.

Carrie-Ann was pretty, with shiny, brown hair and freckles, and dimples in her cheeks. Beth had thought, yesterday, that maybe she couldn't do anything about the blanks in her file, but maybe she could be pretty, too, so that the next time Ms. Brown showed a family her picture, they might look at it, and forget the file, and say yes, they wanted her.

Ms. Brown hadn't been wrong, all those months ago when they'd met the first time and Beth had heard her talking to her boss. She _was_ freaky-looking. Sharp elbows and knees, way too skinny for the clothes Ms. Ibañez picked up from the secondhand store. Too skinny, anyway. She was like a skeleton person, and her nose and chin were all pointy. But that was fine. The bad part, Beth had decided, was the hair. She did look Greek, or like she was fresh off the rez, or like maybe her mom or dad had been black, even, or Latina like Ms. Ibañez. Or she would, but her stupid hair was long and yellow and just _weird_. And Beth had thought, if only it were dark, then maybe she'd be pretty. Prettier, anyway.

So she'd taken money from Ms. Ibañez's sock drawer and gone to the corner store and bought a box of hair dye. It was supposed to turn her hair chocolate brown, but she'd done it wrong, and it'd come out like some sort of perverted bronzy-green and blonde zebra in the end, with dark places on her neck, cheeks, and forehead where she'd missed with the bottle and dyed her skin by mistake. Jimmy had laughed so hard.

Ms. Ibañez hadn't, but she'd pursed her lips and marched Beth right back into the bathroom once she'd made her open up, and right back into the shower. Except Beth had stayed on the floor too long, horrified by what she'd done, before Jimmy had started banging on the door and yelling that he had to shit, and Ms. Ibañez had come to see about the fuss. The dye had set, Ms. Ibañez said, after she'd tried for an hour to make it unset, and it couldn't be washed out. She'd punished Beth then, but promised they'd fix it, anyway. Beth didn't believe it could be fixed.

Even if it did, though, even if they did something at the salon to make her hair go back to normal, it'd be just like it was before, and she'd be just as freaky-looking as before. Or just plain ugly. And it'd go in her blank file that she'd been bad today, and Ms. Brown would probably take her away from Ms. Ibañez to someone that maybe wouldn't even try to be nice in this shitty neighborhood where everything was so hard. And Carrie-Ann was gone, with her laugh and her jokes and the candy she'd lift from the teacher's desk at school, and Beth would never, ever find a family.

Beth kicked the shelving opposite, and her insect friends skittered around her dye-spotted hands. She bit her tongue to keep from crying again as her stomach growled, and she waited for Ms. Ibañez to come tell her it was okay to come out.

* * *

 **A/N: Thanks for reading. If you're enjoying the story or have anything to say, please take a moment to do so. I wrote this for fun and not for reviews, and right now I'm far, far ahead of my postings, so the updates will continue regardless, but I'd love to hear what you have to say!**

 **Always,**

 **LMS**


	4. School

IV

School

"Why didn't he kick them right back into wherever they're from? If I'd been the General, I'd have blown all of them up," Lane said. Beth rolled her eyes.

"It was tragic that General Williams proved unable to hold Shanxi, but remember that the Second Fleet took it back a month later," Ms. Thibodeaux said. Beth tapped on her desk, fuming, but she couldn't do it. She couldn't stay quiet.

"Of course they did," she said. "The turians were outnumbered and running out of supplies. They couldn't hold Shanxi for long. They only took it in the first place because they had the better position and Shanxi was a civilian colony. What I don't get is why Williams gets so much crap for retreating. It was the smart thing to do, until reinforcements arrived. If he hadn't, a lot more people would've died. We didn't know what we were dealing with."

Lane rolled his eyes, and Quan and Vance muttered something under their breath. Beside them, Katie and Alice giggled. The teacher turned slightly red, and plastered on one of her fake, plastic smiles. Well, Beth thought, she should have done the reading she'd assigned. Or at least watched one of the hundreds, thousands of news specials that had been on in the last five years since humans had discovered they weren't alone in the universe after all.

"Beth," Ms. Thibodeaux said, "Thank you for sharing. It's always nice to hear from you. Are you interested in military history?"

Beth crossed her arms and sat back and didn't answer. She'd done enough. She could feel Lane still glaring at her across the room. He was exactly as stupid as he felt, but she'd promised herself she'd stop making him feel it. It never ended well for her.

"Does anyone else have any questions? Comments?" Ms. Thibodeaux asked, after she realized Beth wasn't going to say anything else and her plastic smile stretched just a little thinner, so Beth thought Wendy and Erik up front might actually hear it stretching, like a latex glove in the science lab.

"What are the aliens like?" Una asked shyly. "I mean, why did the turians attack us in the first place? What do they do, out there? And what about the others? There are others, right?"

Beth liked Una. She was one of the only kids in this place that used her brain to think instead of fart. Ms. Thibodeaux nodded, "Yes, Una. The war with the turians was resolved when the Council that rules intergalactic policy stepped in to stop it. The turians had attacked humans because it is against intergalactic law to activate unknown mass relays like the one near Shanxi. But the Council realized that humans, having never had previous contact with another species of sentient life, didn't know this. There are two other species on the Council other than the turians: asari and salarians."

"Asari are the hot blue chicks, right? My dad knows all about them," Quan volunteered. "There's this magazine, right? And—"

Ms. Thibodeaux was quick to nip _that_ discussion in the bud. "Well, I think that's enough social studies for now. Take out your maths homework, if you please, and we'll go over the answers together."

Beth snorted. Jimmy had some of those asari magazines at the home. It wouldn't be anything Ms. Thibodeaux would want to talk about in her politically correct third grade classroom, though it wasn't like all the kids in here didn't already know that people had sex. Well, Jennifer might not, with her pink hair ribbons and her precious Daddy and Mommy that came to every stupid event they held at this stupid place. But Jessie would probably tell her soon enough for the shock value.

She pulled out her maths homework. She'd only done the first problem in each section. It wasn't like Ms. Thibodeaux actually marked the worksheets, because if she did almost the entire class would fail, and that would make her and Principal James look bad. And anyway, it was all the same.

Everything was the same. Just a big pile of bullshit with a know-nothing bimbo that hadn't known what the hell else to do with her life posing in front of the room acting like she was the universe's mommy. Every few months or so they had an assembly and claimed they were in this to help people, with sexual abuse, with bullying, with poverty or ignorance or whatever. But they didn't care, really. They just wanted to feel and act like they did.

Beth knew they didn't care, because Ms. Thibodeaux walked past the playground on her way to her skycar every afternoon, and whenever she heard yelling, or maybe even saw Lane and his goons coming after Beth because once again she'd failed to keep her stupid mouth shut, Ms. Thibodeaux always pretended she didn't know and kept walking, because the day was over, and she was off the clock.

"So not only are you a smartass, Shepard, you're a damn alien lover, too?" he asked that afternoon, cracking his knuckles as Quan and Vance and Shane and Lila grinned from behind him. Shane and Lila were new. Either she'd put up more of a fight than they'd wanted last time, or she was pissing more people off these days.

"Love aliens better than you, anyway," Beth said. "You seen the vids of the turians? They're a little better looking than you, Roberts."

"Real funny, Shepard," Lila said, sneering. She was one of the worst ones in the lunchroom, but she'd never gotten violent before. "We'll see how much you're laughing in a minute."

Beth backed up against the wall. Cut off her chances of running, but at least they wouldn't be able to completely surround her. Vance was faster than her, anyway. "Hey, I can do this every day," she said. "In fact, seems like I do. And you always seem to need more guys to take me down. Wonder why that is." She clenched her fists, preparing.

Lane laughed his angry laugh. "God, you're such a bitch, Shepard," he said, and punched.

Beth ducked his blow to her face, but couldn't dodge Shane's to her side. It knocked the air out of her, and she gasped and dodged as Vance tried to come in to grab her. "Screw you," she said from between grit teeth, and kicked out at Lila. "Idiots and cowards, too."

* * *

 **PARTIAL DIALOGUE BETWEEN P. THIBODEAUX AND L. YOUNG, VICE PRINCIPAL, 2162**

P. THIBODEAUX: (nervous) No, I . . . uh . . . I don't think she's abused at the Millers. Hard to tell, of course. But you know how it is in the system.

L. YOUNG: She hasn't told you anyone beats her? Mentioned it to any of the other children?

P. THIBODEAUX: Sir, Beth Shepard never tells anyone anything. She isn't close with any of the other students. She's defensive, sarcastic, hostile—hard. Really a _very_ unpleasant girl.

L. YOUNG: Unpleasant or not, I trust you would report any issues in your classroom according to protocol, Ms. Thibodeaux. A contentious student body reflects badly on our school during evaluations.

P. THIBODEAUX: She doesn't mesh well with the other students, sir. She—well, she is very quick and bright, and she tends to—she doesn't know how to _tone it down_ , or won't.

L. YOUNG: Her marks _are_ exceptional.

P. THIBODEAUX: I've no problem with the quality of her schoolwork. (Irritated) She could learn a thing or two about _manners_ , or controlling her temper—

L. YOUNG: (Sternly) _Have_ there been incidents, Ms. Thibodeaux?

P. THIBODEAUX: (Reluctantly acknowledging it) . . . In _my_ classroom, brief verbal arguments only.

L. YOUNG: And outside?

P. THIBODEAUX: . . . I can't control what happens when students are not _directly_ under my care, sir.

* * *

 **A/N: This one goes out to everyone that's been bullied, physically or verbally, for being different** — **especially if the people who should have done something about it didn't.**

 **I always thought Shepard was extraordinarily intelligent, and Earthborn Shepard would've gotten hell for it growing up, as well as for being an orphan.**

 **Thanks for reading. If you've got something to say, let me know!**

 **Always,**

 **LMSharp**


	5. Dreams

V

Dreams

When Beth finally picked herself up off the asphalt, wincing, the sun had already started going down, painting the edges of the dilapidated, dirty skyscrapers orange-red. Beth grimaced, feeling the throb in her torso, arms, everywhere. Her lip stung, and the vision in her right eye was obscured, but at least she wasn't still bleeding anywhere. Grimly, she brushed the dirt from her clothes as best she could. They were three sizes too big and falling apart. And black. Beth _hated_ black. But she didn't have so many outfits she could be careless of any. She set her teeth, and began limping down the street.

The bus was long gone and so were the last of the kids from school, the ones whose parents had run late for whatever reason or other. Beth didn't have a com, or anyone that'd come even if she could call for a ride, so she trekked the fifteen blocks from the primary school to the Millers alone. She skirted the smokers on the corners, kept to the shadows, out of sight of the pimps and their strung-out whores with dirty fingernails and clown makeup and desperate, haunted eyes. One of 'em couldn't be older than twelve. Beth swallowed, passing her, wondering if the girl had been up in the intermediate across the school from the primary, a few weeks or months ago. Three blocks from the Millers' Beth heard a shot down on Tenth, and she hurried a little faster along, swearing in her head as each step sent a twinge through her bruised shin and swollen knee, because she couldn't risk swearing aloud.

Dwight and Karen were fighting in the yard. Apparently Karen had dumped Dwight for Tish down the street. They were screaming and cussing in the dirt yard. "Shut the hell up, Dwight, no one cares," Beth snapped. "Reynolds, if it's over, get out and go find your new girlfriend."

"Who the fuck asked you, you little snot? Where the hell you been, anyway?" Dwight snarled.

"None of your damn business!" Beth shot back. She opened the chipping, discolored front door and stomped inside. Behind her, Dwight and Karen went right back to screaming and cussing. Well, at least it was better than the two of them having sex down the hall every day, Beth reflected. The walls here were too thin.

Mr. Miller was in the living room on the couch, beer in hand and three empty bottles already on the coffee table. His sparse hair was greasy, his eyes were bloodshot and pink-rimmed. He grunted at Beth and continued to watch the game on the TV. From the bedroom, Mrs. Miller was sobbing again about something or other. This was the worst shithole Ms. Brown had dumped her in yet, Beth thought.

Coop was playing as quietly as possible with Annie in the corner, because if they got too loud it'd mean at least no dinner and maybe a belting, even though Annie was only three, a freaking baby. She'd learn, though. Or maybe get adopted. She was cute. Beth nodded at Coop. He smiled shyly at her. God, he was such a sissy. She wondered how the hell the bullies never picked on him at school. Probably 'cause he was so boring he was invisible. Beth tipped Coop a wave and stalked down the hall to the room she shared with Lindsay.

She could circle the smoke in the streets, but here the sickly sweet smell permeated the place. Beth shut the door, though, and swung up on to her bed. She lay on the lumpy mattress and glared at the cracked ceiling. Rolling another joint between her fingers, Lindsay watched her with sleepy eyes from her position propped up against the headboard of her own bed.

"Missed the bus again? That's a beaut of a shiner, there. What'd you do this time?"

"Sanchez and his flunkies were laying into Liz just 'cause her dad's trading with aliens at the warehouse. Freaking xenophobic morons," Beth muttered.

"Xeno-what now?" Lindsay slurred.

Beth half sat up and fell back down, futilely trying to find a comfortable spot. "If they'd just done the stupid reading. Or watched a vid. Aliens—there are whole _worlds_ out there, and if we don't work together, all of us are going to be . . . stuck. Forever. You know? I told them. They didn't appreciate it."

"You and aliens. Ever since you came here. Not everyone does appreciate you shoving your crazy brains in their faces," Lindsay said, not unkindly. "Why can't you just keep your mouth shut, huh?"

"Because Sanchez was _wrong_ , and he was picking on Liz for no good reason."

"You don't even like Liz."

"So?"

"Isn't Sanchez three years older than you?"

Beth shrugged.

"And how many guys did he have with him?"

"Five." Beth spat out the number, defiant.

"Five." Lindsay blew out more smoke and hit her head against the headboard, closing her eyes lazily. "Jesus, Shepard. You just got badass enough that that other crew stopped messing with you, and now you're out to make even more friends. You really know how to pick your fights. You _trying_ to get killed?"

"No," Beth said. "It's not my fault they're all idiots. Or just . . . horrible."

"You think you're so smart. Or some kind of hero. But you just piss people off, kid. Here. You want a hit?" She reached over to offer Beth the joint.

"You know I hate that stuff. I wish you wouldn't smoke it in here."

"You need to learn to chill, kid. Only way you can make it, round here."

"I've been making it a lot longer than you have," Beth said. "So thanks, but no thanks."

"That's right, you're a vet, aren't you? Old hat in the system. How long have you been in, anyway? How many homes?"

"Six. I don't even have another story, Olson." Beth kept her face straight, didn't let her roommate see how badly it still hurt that there wasn't anyone, hadn't ever been anyone, that no one had ever claimed her.

Lindsay didn't say anything for a long time. Either she was getting properly stoned now or she knew there wasn't anything to say. She wasn't a bad sort. "It sucks here," she said finally, in a voice so full it shook. "I'm getting out, Shepard."

Beth sat up, crossed her legs. "You got an out? How?"

"I know a guy," Lindsay said. "Says he knows a guy that has a job across town. I can get my own place, make some money."

"What kind of job?" Beth asked.

"Sales," Lindsay said. "Vert says Grayson got a new store. New fashions. He needs people to sell them. All I have to do is lie to the fat ladies and tell them they look great in the stuff when they don't and check 'em out, and I get a huge discount."

"When you leaving?"

"Next week." Lindsay ground out her joint in the tray she kept under her bed, and looked up at Beth. "I'll be glad to see the back of this place, but I'll be a little sorry to see the back of you, Shepard. You aren't a bad kid. Always interesting, anyway."

Beth looked Lindsay over. She was far from the worst roommate Beth had ever had. "Hope it's worth it, dropping school for this," she said.

"We can't all be geniuses," Lindsay smiled. "There's other things out there, you know?"

"Yeah," Beth said.

"What do you want to do, Shepard? What's your out gonna be?"

Beth snorted. "I'm just a kid. Nine can't do anything for anybody. At least, nothing good. No, I'm stuck here for a few more years. But you're damn right I won't be forever. Someday . . ." She stopped, almost laughing as her face stung and her body throbbed, ashamed to speak her dream aloud.

"Someday?" Lindsay prompted, sleepily. She was half-asleep now.

"The Alliance," Beth whispered. The light hadn't been on to begin with, and now the room was almost entirely dark. "There are worlds out there, light years away from East Side, and I want to see them. If I can stick it out, just long enough . . . just long enough . . ."

"You'll play hero up there in the stars, huh?" Lindsay chuckled. "Get paid to get beat up every week? God, you'd probably be good at it, kid. You stick it out, Shepard. You stick it out."

"And you. Good luck with your job. I hope it goes well for you."

Lindsay turned over. "Yeah. Yeah." Her breathing shifted as she fell asleep, and Beth stared at the ceiling, feeling trapped and young and small and beaten. The stars she longed for felt farther than far, unreachable. The lights of Vancouver polluted the sky so she couldn't even see them.


	6. Dead Ends

**Trigger Warning: Referenced rape.**

* * *

VI

Dead Ends

Sanchez and his flunkies up in the intermediate had started wearing Comets colors, and last week Beth had seen Jimmy from Ms. Ibañez's on the street corner cutting a drug deal with a junkie with trembling hands, yellow eyes, and yellow teeth. He'd had a gun stuck in the back of his waistband.

Last week, the girl they'd brought in when Lindsay ran, Inez, had walked home alone. Except she was too pretty, pert and tiny with sparkling, black eyes and thick, dark hair that bounced as she walked, and she'd come home with bruises on her face, a torn shirt, and blood on her pants, sobbing and shaking. She'd only lost her parents three months ago. She didn't know the area, and she didn't know how to take care of herself. Mrs. Miller had been out, and Mr. Miller had looked too much like the drunks that had attacked her in the first place, judging by Inez's response, so Beth and Dwight had ended up walking her to the clinic. The nurses there had taken care of her body, but they couldn't fix what the men had done to Inez's head.

And just today, walking back to the home, Beth had recognized one of the strung-out whores on the way. Lindsay's friend Grayson's shop had proven another lie to another addict looking for a way out, and by now, Beth knew, Lindsay would be more trapped than she'd ever been in the system, on harder stuff than she'd chosen for herself when she'd had the choice, and never alone in her new flat like she'd wanted.

There were only so many options for an East Side kid with nothing. A few less for a foster kid, a few more for a girl, but those weren't the nice ones. Alice and Katie and Jen had all started wearing makeup and heels to school, and Liz had started going places with Andy afterwards. To the corner store or the movies. The girls in school were growing bodies, and Beth checked the cracked dirty mirror in the bathroom every day, terrified she'd start growing one too. A foster girl on her own had to defend her body or use it, or she'd find herself used. Like Lindsay. Like Inez. And Beth got into so many fights anyway.

She knew probably more than half of them were her fault. She couldn't stand bullies. Anytime she saw someone little being beat down by someone bigger, she just got so mad. Well, saw someone metaphorically little. Beth was still probably one of the scrawniest kids in the grade. But small didn't mean weak. The other ones that couldn't take it, when they got targeted, Beth sailed in. It was like she was fighting for all the things she couldn't beat at those times. The stupid system, the stupid school, the whole freaking town. Each punch on behalf of the little ones was a punch against every injustice and ugliness around her. Didn't mean she won. She lost, usually, just like she lost against the other stuff. And those fights she didn't start on behalf of others usually started because she couldn't keep her mouth shut, and someone had ended up feeling stupid. Those were the nasty ones, the ones where she ended up fighting five or six at once, and when it was over she was huddled on the asphalt, too bruised to move until the bus had gone once again, biting her tongue 'til the blood came so no one would see her cry.

If she didn't learn to win soon, she'd be in trouble. Big trouble. Except she needed time to learn, and teachers. Beth had some ideas about that. She didn't like them much, but she wasn't blessed with a whole lot of opportunity. So these days, when she wasn't watching Annie for the Millers, or telling Inez stories until she slept at last, or cleaning herself up from another fight, she was watching the streets. The ebb and flow of the currents, the power struggle of the neighborhood. Trying to figure where she might go to learn to win against the kids at school, and against everything else. Trying to figure who might teach her, look after her. She didn't have anybody looking out for her. So the thing was to find somebody. She had one last idea before she'd need the research, but if it didn't pan out, she'd seek the rundown shack in the snowstorm. Not a safe place, because nowhere was safe, but shelter nonetheless.

* * *

 **A/N: This fic will be concluding 10/4. Keep an eye out for the sequel, Part Two in The Disaster Zone, _Little Beth_ , arriving 10/7. I hope you're enjoying reading about Beth Shepard. (Probably the wrong word. It's a pretty grim story. I hope it's powerful and effecting, anyway.)**

 **Thanks for reading,**

 **LMS**


	7. Shepard

VII

Shepard

She'd actually thought of it the night she and Dwight had taken Inez to the clinic. In the waiting room, Beth had remembered what she'd overheard the social worker telling her boss years ago, that a nurse at that same East Sixteenth Charity Clinic had given Beth her name. The nurse had been there when Beth had been born. The nurse had seen her mother, maybe talked to her. It wasn't much to go on, but it was Beth's last idea before she had to take other steps to find a place to stand on her own, a way to avoid being victimized and learn the things she'd need to know if she were ever to get out of East Side.

So the first week of the summer, Beth stole a few credits from Mr. Benning's sock drawer. The Bennings were new, somewhat better than the Millers, but they still kept the cash in the same old spot. She took just enough to take the bus down to South Sixteenth and back, hopefully not enough that they'd miss it.

She hopped on the bus a couple blocks away from the Bennings. The route ran right through downtown. Beth snagged a window seat, and she watched the buildings as the bus passed by them. On the corner of Kingsway and Beatrice there was a small, neat yellow brick building, sandwiched in between a yoghurt shop and a restored, old movie theatre. There were blue, starred flags out front, and neat, white letters above the entrance to the building read "Alliance Navy Recruitment Center." Beth watched the building until the bus had carried her out of sight and promised herself once again that someday she'd leave East Side and see the stars. One way or another.

East Sixteenth Charity Clinic was a long, low, brown building with a green roof. Everything looked about twenty years out of date and on the benches around the parking lot homeless people in patched gray coats sat, but nonetheless it was a comfortable place. Beth had been here a couple of times before, with Inez, but also once when she'd sprained her ankle running from kids at school, and another particularly bad time when they'd caught her and broken her ribs. Compassionate people worked here, and it had given the entire area a peaceful, safe feeling, despite the misery that walked every day through the doors.

Beth walked up to the front desk. The receptionist was bottle-blond and pleasantly plump. Her name tag read "Shareen." Her face was tired, but not hard-looking like almost all of the faces Beth saw every day.

"Um . . . excuse me," Beth said. "I'm looking for Nurse Joan Redding. Does she still work here?"

It had taken some doing to sneak a look at her file and get the name back in April, when the new social worker had called her in to place her with the Bennings.

The receptionist blinked. "You don't want to see a doctor?"

"I'm not sick, ma'am," Beth answered. "I just need to talk to Nurse Redding. Is she here? I'm sorry, but it's very important."

Shareen activated the console in front of her, shaking her head slightly as she searched the schedule. "She's with a patient," she told Beth. "I—"

"I'll wait," Beth interrupted, as politely as she could, but firmly. "I really need to talk to her."

Shareen looked down at Beth and hesitated. "Oh, okay, sweetheart. I'll tell her you're here. Who should I say it is?" She opened up a message on the console. Her hands hovered over the screen, waiting for Beth's word.

Now Beth hesitated, suddenly unsure. "Beth. Beth Shepard. I'm not sure if she'll remember me."

But she did.

Twenty minutes after Shareen sent the message, Nurse Joan Redding came out to the front. "Clock me out, Shareen," she instructed the receptionist. "It appears I have another engagement."

Shareen looked from the nurse to Beth, baffled, but Beth saw her put in the time into the computer. Nurse Redding followed Shareen's gaze to Beth and spotted her in the waiting room, amongst the coughing and bleeding and desperate, sitting quietly with her hands in her lap. She walked over, and took both of Beth's hands in cool, calloused ones at once, and Beth looked up into dark, kind eyes and forgot her nervousness.

Nurse Redding was a tall, black woman, not pretty, but with a strong, serene face that was better than prettiness, somehow. She wore plain, blue scrubs, and her only accessory was a small, gold cross necklace. Beth could tell at once that it was not a fashion statement, but a profession of faith. She tentatively squeezed Nurse Redding's hands.

"I'm Beth Shepard."

"Yes," Nurse Redding replied. Her face was sad. "I wondered if you'd come here someday, child. Come with me. You must have questions."

Beth squirmed her hands out of the woman's, stood, and looked her over. "I don't know you," she said. "I'm not an idiot."

Nurse Redding chuckled. "No one ever says that unless they feel that they are one."

"I'd be an idiot to go with you," Beth pointed out.

Nurse Redding waited. And Beth set her jaw, and nodded once, because the nurse was right. The conversation would be easier someplace else. She followed the woman out of the clinic.

If the woman had tried to take her someplace private, Beth would've kicked her hard and run, but she didn't. Nurse Redding merely walked her a couple blocks down to a small local coffee shop. The lighting was soft and yellow, a couple kids were playing on a small stage in a corner for tips, and the whole place smelled like chocolate, fresh bread, and coffee. Warm, safe, comfortable smells Beth didn't smell very often. Nurse Redding ordered a cup of black coffee and a small cake, then asked Beth what she wanted. Beth ordered a small cocoa, and Nurse Redding paid, then led them to a tiled table outside on the store's patio.

"Weird how you walk just a couple blocks and the whole city changes," Beth remarked. "Last time I was downtown proper was a field trip back in October to the science museum. I got Mr. Miller to sign the form when he was drunk so Mrs. Miller didn't read it and say no because of the money. I pinched that." She said it baldly, boldly, watching Nurse Redding out of the corner of her eye for a reaction.

"Are the Millers your guardians?"

"Were. Got moved again a couple months back," Beth shrugged. "A guy at the home spilled to the social worker that the two of us had to take care of another girl when she got raped last year. Probably said it 'cause the new social worker's hot, and he was trying to look like a hero or something, but she did her job and started an investigation, and all of us got moved." She shrugged again.

Nurse Redding took a drink of her coffee, and waited. She was a cool one. Beth shifted, uncomfortable. "I never got adopted," she said, although she hadn't meant to explain herself. "Girl with no genetic info? They mod out a lot of diseases now, or at least know what problems the kid might have. Without that information, taking me on was too much of a gamble. Someone might've risked it, but the state doesn't even have a name to start a search so they can offer potential parents a ballpark guess at what problems I might have. And every year . . ." Beth swallowed hard, and bit her tongue until her eyes stopped stinging.

"Every year it is less likely you will be adopted," Nurse Redding finished. She kept her eyes on Beth's face. "How long has it been now? You are . . . eleven, if I remember right."

Beth nodded, still biting her tongue. She clenched her fists too. Her cocoa was cooling. She breathed. Once. Twice. Three times, then swallowed down half of it in one go, and she was fine again.

"I can take it," she said. "I always have. I'll make it some way or another until I can get out, but I thought . . . I thought maybe it might be easier if I could . . . do you know anything about my mother? My father? Anyone at all that was there that night you put the name on the certificate?"

Nurse Redding sighed. "I saw your mother," she said. "You're not the only one in the country with no records, you know. I've heard of cases where babies are dropped off in boxes and such, and some where the mother dies before she can say anything, though that hardly ever happens nowadays. But you weren't like that. Your mother had you at the clinic, and I was the nurse present at the time.

"I guess you favor your daddy, with those gray eyes and that blonde hair, 'cause your mother was dark. Doctor Nolan said it was Greek that she cussed in, when she didn't speak English. She was pretty, though. A little slip of a thing. Her face was shaped like yours."

The news was food to the starving. Beth drank it in. She had her mother's bone structure and skin tone, but she looked like her father, whoever he was. "What do you know about her?" she demanded. "Did she tell you her name? Anything?"

Nurse Redding shook her head. "I'm sorry, honey. She didn't. She showed up alone in labor. We took her straight to a room. She wouldn't take any drugs to help with the pain, and . . . darling, she left. I took you to get cleaned and weighed and all that. Doctor Nolan went to see about something to help her, but when we came back, she'd gone. She walked right out."

Beth stared. Sometimes she'd imagined she had come in a box or that her mother had died giving birth to her. Sometimes she'd dared dream that an evil uncle or grandfather had stolen her from her desperate, single mother, taking her in secret to the clinic with no name or papers, and that all these years, if her mother had just known, she would have come for her. Other times she knew that was a fantasy, and she'd imagined a heartbroken woman in the hospital bed, a mute, or speaking a language no one at the clinic could understand, without the translators the higher-end hospitals would give their staff. Or a woman too stupid to know that she should at least give a name to the child she, for some tragic reason, could not keep or send to some other relative. A woman that had given her up without ceremony, but because she couldn't follow the process, not because she wouldn't. In all her imaginings, whenever her actual mother had been present at Beth's arrival to the clinic on April 11, 2154, she had held her, been sad, wanted to keep Beth, but been unable to do so. Now Nurse Redding was telling her that a woman that had spoken English had gone to the clinic, dropped her like some . . . horse, or something, and walked out without a word before Beth had even been cleaned up properly.

"She . . . she walked out," Beth repeated stupidly. "She just left. God, did she refuse the drugs on purpose so she could? Must've had some pain tolerance, but . . . she walked out?" Her words came faster and faster, and her eyes were stinging again, threatening tears, but Beth couldn't bring herself to care. "She didn't just give me up, she . . . she didn't even care enough to stick around and . . ." Beth was breathing far too fast.

"Sweetheart, Beth . . ." Nurse Redding tried.

"No. No," Beth said, clenching the table now. "Did she say anything in labor? Anything at all?"

Nurse Redding went on, her own eyes moist. "She cussed some and prayed some, and once she said—she said she was no one's mother."

"Yeah, well, she should've thought of that before she got knocked up. Or before she was in the freaking hospital bed having a kid," Beth said, all the bitterness in her breast spilling out, fast and angry. "Could've aborted, and it would've been better—"

"Don't say that!" Nurse Redding interrupted with sudden vehemence. "Darling, _never_ wish yourself out of existence. Now I'm not saying she was right. She should've held you. Given you a name, at least, if she had to give you up. Something of hers you could have. What she did . . . no child should have to grow up with that. But you can take it. You told me so yourself. You're brave and strong and smart. I can tell that plain as day. What your mother did was wrong, but stopping that from living, not even giving you a chance? That would've been worse. By far."

Beth was able to breathe again. She just breathed for a long moment as her world shrank, and all the possibilities she'd imagined blinked out like extinguished candles. "Maybe," she said. "I don't wish I was dead, Nurse Redding, but . . . but . . . what am I gonna do?" The last words came out almost as a whisper. She wasn't talking to the nurse anymore, but the woman answered anyway.

"Call me Joan. You listen to me, Beth Shepard. You're going to make it, just like you said. You're going to keep going, and you're going to make it, and get out, and do whatever you want to do."

"See the stars," Beth said, her voice little more than a whisper "I want to see the stars. Other worlds, other people. This city is enormous, but it's _just so small_."

Joan Redding laughed. "Beth Shepard. Oh, don't ever tell me God doesn't answer prayers."

Beth blinked. "What?"

"Your name," she laughed some more. "They came around with the paperwork after she'd gone. Your birth certificate's a bunch of crap without any parents on it, just a record for the government to stow away in some database of the date and time you were born, of size and sex and Canadian citizenship. But someone had to give you a name for it, and I wasn't going to let them call you Jane Smith. You deserved more than that."

"So why Beth Shepard?" Beth asked. "And how was it a prayer?"

"Beth's a nice, solid name. Prettier than Jane, and works for just about any girl. I wanted you to make it what you wanted, and hoped it'd do for whoever you grew up to be. But Shepard . . . Shepard was the prayer. For who _I_ hoped you'd be, a strong girl, a brave girl, a caring girl, a shepherd to the Lord's people, and someone I hoped would rise above anything she went through."

Beth laughed, too, getting it now. "Alan Shepard. After the first American in space? Really?"

Joan Redding was still laughing. "Well, you didn't look like a Gagarin."

"Doubt I looked like much of anything," Beth snorted. "Babies usually don't. Nurse Redding—Joan. Thanks. It was a good choice."

"Seems like it. I hope it keeps working for you," Joan Redding fished a pen out of her purse, and wrote a number on a napkin. "Here. Give me a call if I can help you with anything. I'd like to know what happens to you, Beth Shepard."

Beth stopped smiling. She took the napkin and looked at the numbers, even as she knew she'd never call. Joan Redding was nice, but Beth would never be able to look at her without remembering what she'd learned today. And because she was so nice, Beth really didn't think the nurse would want to hear what would happen to Beth next, what she was going to do. Strong, brave? Maybe. She'd have to be. Caring? A shepherd to God's people? Definitely not. God didn't exist in Beth's world, but she wasn't about to tear him out of Joan Redding's.

So she extended her hand to shake, and Joan Redding took it. Beth grabbed the empty coffee cups and threw them in a nearby bin. "Come on," Joan Redding said. "I'll walk you to the bus station. You got enough to get home?"

"Yeah," Beth said. Pinched that, too, she didn't say. Instead, she went with Joan to the bus, and back to the home without parents, with only a prayer of a name watching over her, instead of the promise of parents she'd gone to find.

* * *

 **A/N: This concludes Part One of The Disaster Zone series. Look out for Part Two,** _ **The Disaster Zone: Little Beth**_ **, which covers the years Beth spends in the Tenth Street Reds, first learning some of the skills she will later put to work for the Alliance—and trying to hide all that she's learning so she doesn't have to drop out of school or get a criminal record that will keep her from joining the Alliance.**

 **Leave a review if you've got something to say,**

 **LMSharp**

 **UPDATE 10/11/17: The sequel started posting last Saturday. Find it on my profile to follow Beth's story!**


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